


i think your love would be too much

by dharmainitiative



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Derek "Nursey" Nurse is Unchill, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Mild Blood, Non-Graphic Violence, Partners in Crime, Partners to Lovers, Pining, Superheroes, Teamwork, it's fun tho i promise everything turns out good in the end, these tags are getting progressively scary the more i go on
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:29:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23790847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dharmainitiative/pseuds/dharmainitiative
Summary: After working for the Samwell Hero Agency for about two years, Derek Nurse has learned that being a superhero isn’t as glamorous as it's made out to be.Or: five times Will saves Derek, and one time Derek saves Will.
Relationships: Derek "Nursey" Nurse/William "Dex" Poindexter
Comments: 28
Kudos: 160





	i think your love would be too much

**Author's Note:**

> WOW i have been working on this for a LONG TIME. lots of things were attempted with this fic! writing whiskey in character! making him nursey's roommate! coming up with superhero scenarios and shenanigans! creating an underground superhero agency that's like the avengers but if the avengers were on the office! did it work??? i have no idea lol but i hope you enjoy this fic anyway!
> 
> also, because i'm extra, i made a playlist for this fic which you can find [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6isBh87lQkvZ1rMLKW3WzY?si=JgQyv1z1RqKp3OoXvsnVwQ)
> 
> title from sunflower because what else was i supposed to do for a superhero au let's be real

_i._

After working for the Samwell Hero Agency for about two years, Derek Nurse has learned that being a superhero isn’t as glamorous as it's made out to be. Saving lives every day is hard work — he can’t even remember the last Saturday where he wasn’t either at work or on-call. And he knows keeping his identity a secret from the most important people in his life is necessary to the job, but he still feels like a dick turning down movie nights with his roommate because he has to finish something at the office, or telling his moms he can’t come home for the weekend because of a work retreat, or in general pretending he’s a low-level editor at a publishing company rather than a crime-fighting vigilante in spandex.

But when things are going well, which happens more often than the headlines lead people to believe, the job can actually be pretty chill. For an underground operation, Samwell Hero Agency is pretty official: every employee that works for the company is utilized and assigned their own missions, which means that all heroes are doing their part to collectively keep Samwell’s citizens safe. It’s much more efficient than doing the whole vigilante thing solo, in Derek’s opinion. Not to mention it pays better. 

Plus, he works with a great group of people: Jack, a retired hero and legend who owns the agency; Eric, who uses super speed on the job but has also once made ten delicious pies in about thirty minutes; Justin, who works in their hospital as a healer; Adam, who has super strength and spends far too much time getting injured as an excuse to flirt with Justin; and Chris, an empath who’s arguably Derek’s favorite coworker and definitely his best friend.

So really, the job isn’t so bad. After all, how many people can say that their job is a real life superhero? (The answer is more people than you’d think, technically, but let’s ignore that statistic for now.) If someone told him this is where he’d be five years ago, he would’ve laughed in their face. Five years ago, Derek Nurse was only interested in graduating from Andover and getting into Harvard. That is, until he’d gotten his rejection letter from Harvard and his entire life plan got thrown out of whack.

He’d been banking on Harvard for years. Since he was born, it felt like, and with no backup plan, he didn’t know what else to do. It was too late to apply anywhere else, and it felt like going home and seeing the sympathy on his moms’ faces would make everything worse, so he moved the next town over, found a roommate, and then did...well, nothing. For almost a year, Derek did nothing except mope on the couch, eat Cheese Puffs, and bitterly scroll through Harvard’s Instagram page.

The most fucked up part of it was that he didn’t even care about going to Harvard, not really. He’d applied as an English major just because that seemed like the most natural choice, but he’d never even planned out what he was going to major in, or what career he wanted to pursue. What he cared about was the idea of Harvard, of being important, of someone recognizing his potential. He wanted to do something with his life that would help people or make some kind of difference, and he figured what better gateway to doing that than one of the most prestigious colleges in the world? But now all of that was fucked, so for nearly a year he spent his time working odd-jobs and watching shitty suspense movies on Lifetime and wishing he had something, anything, to do.

The whole vigilante thing started sort of by accident. It’s during his brief stint working at Walmart — his lowest point, essentially — when he realizes that while Samwell is a nice enough town, it can be a pretty dangerous place to live. Every night on the news he listened to reports about robberies, kidnappings, and sex trafficking, and it seemed like no one ever did anything about it. There’s a Samwell Police force, of course, but he saw them in action nearly every day at Wal-Mart, arresting people for drug possession or petty theft. They can’t protect the city if they’re spending all their time focusing on small crimes, on people who aren’t even really doing anything wrong, but _someone_ needs to be protecting these people. And Derek was bored and tired and angry, so it occurred to him that maybe that somebody could be him.

The thing about going to a fancy boarding school is that you learn a lot of skills that you think are going to be useless later in life, like water polo or horseback riding or, most importantly, archery. And he doesn’t want to brag, but Derek was pretty good with a bow and arrow, especially in comparison to his classmates. So good that he’d actually kept his archery equipment and brought it with him when he moved to Samwell.

So he found a cheap costume mask at the Dollar Tree and on the nights he had off, watched for trouble from the rooftop of his apartment building. He expected to feel ridiculous, looking for bad guys with a bow and arrow while wearing a Halloween costume, but the whole thing felt surprisingly badass. And it felt good, doing something with his life that wasn’t just feeling sorry for himself. 

He wasn’t changing the world, or anything — just stopping some muggings and break-ins here and there, and sweeping in to help anyone who looked like they needed it. But it felt important, and apparently he wasn’t the only one who thought so, because after doing his secret hobby for about a year, he’s stopped on one memorable night by Jack Zimmermann.

Derek recognized him instantly, of course; he’s pretty sure anyone in Samwell would, maybe even anyone in the world. With his super strength and dashing good looks and that time he got on the news for stopping a train from being derailed with his bare hands, Jack is like Superman if Superman were real, and from Earth. And hotter. Derek would be lying if he said he didn’t feel a little starstruck.

Still, Jack introduced himself anyway, and admitted he’s been admiring Derek’s work for some time.

“Me?” Derek stammered out.

Jack nodded with an amused smile. “We could use someone like you, you know.” He reached into his pocket and handed Derek a card. “Down at the agency, I mean.”

“The agency?” Derek asked, looking down at the business card. SAMWELL HERO AGENCY was printed across it in burgundy letters. It would’ve been cheesy, if the font wasn’t so fancy looking.

“We’d need to do some interviews, some training, all that stuff, before we could actually accept you, of course. But we need people like you. People who care, who want to help. Heroes.”

Heroes? Derek had tripped over his own two feet just that morning.

“But,” he stammered. “I don’t even...like, have super powers, or anything.”

Jack lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Lots of us don’t. Iron Man didn’t, you know.”

Derek gaped at him. “What, you mean he’s like...real?”

Jack laughed once, and when Derek continued to stare at him, he quickly cleared his throat. “Oh. Sorry. No, he’s not real. That was a movie.”

This entire conversation with Jack Zimmermann felt a lot like a movie, too, but Derek decided to not comment on that. 

“I’m just saying,” Jack continued. “What makes a hero isn’t necessarily their supernatural abilities. It’s all about their ability to make a difference.”

And there was the word hero again. Derek wanted to tell Jack that he had it wrong, that Derek wasn’t who he thought he was, that he’d be better off asking someone better, someone more important. But when he opened his mouth, no sound came out.

“You don’t have to say yes,” Jack said. “But just think about it, okay? And call me when you decide.”

And just as quickly as he’d arrived, he was gone. So Derek walked back to his apartment, sat on the couch, stared at the card, and thought. About making the world a safer place, about being recognized for what he had to offer. About wanting to make a difference.

And after a few hours of debating, he picked up his phone and called.

It’s been three years since he made the call, and despite how dangerous and stressful his job can be, Derek’s never once regretted it.

Well, that’s not entirely true. Sometimes he regrets it a little, but only because of William Poindexter.

Derek has tried to get along with him — really, he’s made a very noble effort. They were hired by the agency around the same time, they’re the same age, and Derek had at first assumed they’d be good friends. 

That was before he found out Poindexter had a permanent stick up his ass.

He’s just so anal about everything, and so boring, and he always finds something to get angry with him about. Like, it’s not like Derek doesn’t think it’s important to take their jobs seriously, but come on. They’re _superheroes,_ in _real life,_ and that’s really fucking cool. There’s nothing wrong with having some fun every once in a while. And it’s not like Derek isn’t careful. Most of the time.

But it doesn’t seem to matter, because for whatever reason, Poindexter has some sort of personal vendetta against him, and nothing he does seems to change his mind. He gets angry with Derek over the tiniest little things, from zoning out during mission prep to flirting with civilians after they’ve caught the bad guy.

“We’re on the job, you know,” Poindexter had gritted out after practically dragging him away from the girl who’d been swooning over him a moment ago. “And you’re _undercover._ Are you seriously going to give her your number?” 

“You know, Poindexter,” Derek had said with a smirk. “If _you_ wanted my number, all you had to do was ask.”

He’d scowled and stormed away, but not before Derek spotted the angry flush spreading across the part of his face visible through the mask. 

So, fine. William Poindexter can’t stand him, and Derek does his best to avoid him when he can, and things are chill. Or they were, until a month ago, when Jack decided to permanently make them partners.

In retrospect, the two of them getting paired together almost makes sense. They’re both extremely dedicated to their jobs, and while neither of them have powers, their skills complement each other pretty well. Will is strong while Derek’s fast, and Will is a strategist while Derek relies on spontaneity. Not to mention Derek works best with his bow and arrow from a distance, while Will excels in hand-to-hand combat. 

Secretly, though, Derek thinks Jack’s decision to pair them up has more to do with a feeble hope that they’ll get along than anything else. They don’t fight all the time, but it’s a near thing, and the atmosphere in the office might improve if there’s less animosity hanging in the air every time he and Will cross paths.

Still, if Jack wanted to pair him with someone, Derek wishes he’d picked someone who actually likes him. 

Despite their history, though, having Will as a partner isn’t going as horribly as he thought it would. They clashed heads a lot at first, but it didn’t take them long to figure out that their different strengths actually helped them work better together as a team. The fighting doesn’t stop after that, but they at least have enough common sense to save the arguments for after the job is done. 

Admittedly, they do actually work pretty well together. There’s something about the way he can always predict what Poindexter’s next move will be, always knows when he’ll need an extra hand — like they’re telepathically connected, or something. Sure, Derek still hates the guy, but even he can’t deny that there’s something almost magical about it.

And maybe Derek’s imagining it, but some days it feels like they don’t actually hate each other. It might be the forced proximity, or it might be because after a day fighting the most dangerous criminals in Samwell, their petty arguments don’t feel like such a big deal anymore. Whatever the reason, it’s obvious in the way that Will stops rolling his eyes and Derek stops purposefully trying to egg him on that something’s changed. Sometimes Derek will make a joke and Poindexter will even _laugh_ , though he always has a weird look on his face afterwards, like he hadn’t quite meant to do it out loud.

But it’s not until their third mission together that their dynamic really starts to change.

About two months after being assigned partners, they’re given orders to take down a bank robber at the Wells Fargo on Main Street. Only when they arrive, they discover _two_ bank robbers — one loading money into their truck, and the other holding the customers and employees hostage. It’s a bit more dangerous of a situation than Derek was prepared for, but it’s all in a day’s work, really.

So while Will is searching for Bad Guy #1, Derek is attempting to talk down his accomplice holding civilians at gunpoint. It’s going better than expected, too, until Bad Guy #1 emerges practically out of nowhere, locks eyes with Derek, and aims his gun straight at his head.

There’s not enough time for him to react, but luckily he doesn’t have to. Quick and stealthy, Will disarms the man from behind and punches him square in the jaw. The man collapses to the floor, unconscious.

When Will turns back to Derek, he’s standing there, stunned. “You okay?” 

Derek nods shakily, and while Will is looking like he wants to say more, Bad Guy #2 is taking advantage of the distraction by swinging his gun from the hostages to Derek, and he quickly uses one of his stun arrows to knock him unconscious before he can shoot.

They act quickly after that, checking the civilians for injuries and tying up Bad Guy #1 and #2 while they’re still unconscious. They’re escaping out the back door of the Wells Fargo just as they hear sirens pull up to the front entrance.

A big part of the whole super-hero-slash-vigilante gig is avoiding the police. Samwell relies on them to take the bad guys to jail after the work is done, but aside from that, they don’t cross paths often. A lot of this has to do with the fact that the cops aren’t too thrilled about a band of guys in tights doing their jobs for them, but with the state of things, Derek feels like they can use all the help he can get. 

Safely hidden, he and Will watch the cops load the criminals into the back seat of their cars, and then the two of them make their way back to Samwell Headquarters through back alleys. They’re almost there when Will interrupts the silence. “You alright?”

In all honesty, Derek’s still a little shaken up. He’s been doing this job a long time, and he’s had some pretty close calls, but none of them have ever felt this close. If Will hadn’t been there, he doesn’t know where he’d be right now.

Dead, probably. He’d probably be dead.

“I’m okay,” Derek finally answers, and Will nods, seemingly satisfied. “Uh...thanks. For the assist, I mean.”

Will looks away, of course. Derek had forgotten that Will was allergic to any kind of emotional vulnerability. “Yeah, well. Got your back, or whatever.”

It’s not an overly sentimental statement, or anything. He’s just repeating the Samwell Superhero Agency motto. But coming from grumpy, standoff-ish William Poindexter, it feels like it is. And even though Will is a huge pain in the ass, he realizes that it’s true. Maybe they don’t get along, but he _does_ have Derek’s back, and for now, that’s enough.

“What are you gawking at me for?” Will demands suddenly, and Derek quickly looks away, resuming his brisk walk towards the headquarters.

“Nothing,” he says, then smirks. “Just trying to figure out if you’re blushing underneath your mask.”

Sure enough, Derek watches the lower part of Will’s face turn red, and he smirks further.

  
  


_ii._

A couple of months later, when Derek and Will are at the office filing a post-mission report, Will tosses a Kit-Kat from the vending machine onto his desk.

Derek’s eyebrows raise. “What’s this?”

“It’s a Kit-Kat,” Will says flatly, and Derek narrows his eyes. “Dude, you’ve said the phrase ‘I’m hungry’ twelve times in the past hour.”

“I haven’t said it _that_ many times,” he grumbles, but he peels open the wrapper anyway. “You got this for me?”

Will looks back down at his desk to open up his packet of M&Ms, but he’s not wearing his mask, so Derek watches the flush spread across his entire face this time. “Well, they’re your favorite, aren’t they?”

Derek smiles around a mouthful of Kit-Kat. “That they are, Poindorkster.”

Will glares at him, but there’s no real animosity behind it, and Derek makes up his mind that maybe William Poindexter isn’t as bad as he thought he was.

In truth, this shift in their dynamic has been building ever since Will saved Derek’s life at the bank. Neither of them have brought it up again, but there’s been an unspoken sort of closeness between them ever since, and while they still argue, there’s less bitterness and anger behind it now, and more of a genuine comradery. It’s almost nice, actually.

If anything, Chris Chow is more relieved about their begrudging friendship than either of them are. As both Chris and Will’s long-suffering best friend, he’s spent a lot of time playing the middle-man, trying and failing to encourage them to just get along for once. This role was probably made all the more harder due to his empathic abilities. Technically, Chris has to physically touch someone else to pick up or manipulate their feelings, but he’s always been an expert at reading people, and the tension between him and Will was probably a lot to bear. He’s much happier now that they’re not threatening to kill each other every ten minutes.

But as things with Will are starting to get better, their job seems to get harder. Jack is sending them on a mission nearly every day now, and the missions are getting more and more dangerous. Today’s assignment is chasing down a guy named Jax Brennan, some terrorist who’s threatened to blow up the State House. 

It’s a crazy situation, but the craziest thing about it is that Derek’s been working for the Agency so long that stuff like this barely even phases him anymore.

So he and Will are leaping across the rooftops of buildings downtown, determined to catch Brennan before he can put his plan into action. He’s still ahead of them, racing towards the State House at top speed, but Derek and Will are quickly gaining on him, until Derek reaches the edge of a building and trips. 

It feels like being at the top of a roller-coaster, almost, because his stomach drops, the hair on his arms stands up, and all he can think about how terrifying it feels to be suspended in thin air, to know your feet aren’t touching the ground, to wonder if this is how you’re going to die.

The moment lasts a few seconds, maybe less, but before Derek has time to truly process how much danger he’s in, a strong and sturdy hand grabs him by the collar of his suit and drags him back on top of the roof. 

“Dude,” Will says after Derek has steadied himself on even ground. There’s an amused tilt to his mouth, but there’s something in his eyes that Derek feels confident enough to recognize as concern. “You okay?” 

Derek nods once, and Will looks a little relieved, before his expression turns into one of amusement again. He shakes his head. “Is this a habit of yours? Nearly dying every time we have a mission?”

“Just trying to keep you on your toes, Poindexter.” He’s aiming for casual, but he thinks the nervous laugh he lets out gives him away.

“Seriously, though,” Will says, easily shifting back into no-nonsense mode as he makes the leap to the next building. Derek immediately falls in line next to him, only a little shaky on his feet. “Try to be more careful next time. I can’t be saving your ass every five seconds.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Derek says, waving him off. He thinks they both know Will’s always going to be there to save his ass, and the realization is surprisingly comforting. It’s almost like rereading a book from his childhood as an adult and enjoying it just as much. There’s a feeling of surprise, but there’s a warmth and happiness underneath it, too.

It’s a very sentimental thought to have, especially while he’s trying to track down a terrorist, so he tells himself he’s being ridiculous and shoves the thought aside to ponder on later.

  
  
  


_iii._

“Dude,” His roommate says one night, the two of them watching Netflix on the couch in their apartment. Derek glances up. “Can you stop smiling like an idiot at your phone and actually pay attention to the movie?”

He feels his face go warm. “Fine,” he mutters, typing out a quick “lmfao” just so Will doesn’t think he’s left him on read.

“What, are you telling your boyfriend your mean roommate made you put your phone away?”

Derek’s face burns even hotter. “Shut up, I’m texting my _coworker._ ” 

Connor Whisk — or Whiskey, as he’s asked Derek to call him ever since the day he first moved in — smirks into his beer. “Sure. And when exactly am I gonna meet these elusive editor coworkers?”

“I don’t know,” Derek says evasively. “Wouldn’t want you to scare them off.” Whiskey makes an annoyed grunt. “Since when are you so curious about my work life, anyway?”

“I wouldn’t be if you talked about it every once in a while,” Whiskey shoots back, and Derek resumes looking at his phone, worried his face will give something away. “Seriously, I never would’ve guessed how demanding a job in publishing could be. This is the most I’ve seen you in a week. They even call you in on _Saturdays,_ Nurse.”

He tries to shrug nonchalantly as he shoves a slice of pizza in his mouth. “I’m a very good employee.”

“Apparently,” Whiskey snorts. “But seriously, those two guys you talk about all the time...you should invite them over for dinner or something.”

“Who, Chris and Will?”

“Sure, why not?”

There are actually a lot of reasons why not. Chris has never been to his apartment, and he’s never hung out with Will outside of work, ever, so it might be weird. And though he and Will have been partners going on six months now, their friendship still feels really new. 

Granted, things between the two of them have been good lately — really good, actually. Derek has gotten into the habit of sending Will memes he thinks he’ll find funny, and Will has finally gotten Derek’s coffee order memorized, but still. Inviting him over for dinner feels a little...soon.

Of course, the main reason Whiskey’s idea is a terrible one is that Chris and Will help him fight crime, not edit manuscripts. But he can’t exactly tell Whiskey that, and the more he thinks about it, the more he wonders if maybe the idea isn’t so terrible after all. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a quiet nice in, with his best friends and his roommate, pretending he’s a normal guy with an office job instead of someone who spends most of his nights hunting down criminals? Besides, maybe if Whiskey got a small glimpse of what Derek’s life at work was like, maybe he’d feel less guilty about lying to him all the time. 

In the end, it’s the genuinely curious glance Whiskey shoots his way that wins him over. He and Whiskey are roommates only because Derek was the only suitable candidate Whiskey found through his Craigslist ad. They get along, and Derek might even call them friends, but they’re not especially close. His interest in Derek’s friends at work is a little out of character, but in a sweet way, so really, what can Derek say but yes?

“I’ll think about it,” he finally announces.

“Cool,” Whiskey says in his typical monotone, and then turns back to the TV.

He waits until Whiskey’s preoccupied with the movie to pull out his phone again and fire off a text to their group chat.

**Me**

yooo hypothetically, how good do u guys think you’d be at pretending to be my publishing coworkers?

**Poindorkster**

????

**Chris**

Idk what’s going on but I am IN

  
  
  


The dinner doesn’t actually occur until two Saturdays later. It’s almost a miracle it happens so soon, because Derek doesn’t know the last Saturday where the three of them were completely free. He tells them to plan for dinner and then a movie, because he figures that’ll be a nice, low-key night in, and he tries not to overthink it beyond that, because then he’ll drive himself crazy.

It’s not that he’s nervous, necessarily. It’s just that he hasn’t brought anyone home — friend or otherwise — in years. He wants to give Chris and Will a good impression, but he wants Whiskey to have a good first impression of Chris and Will as well, and he’d also like for his roommate to not find out about his very secret double life. So really, there’s a lot of things to worry about all at once. Hence the not overthinking it thing.

Finally, the Saturday in question arrives, and Whiskey cleans the apartment (because “Do you really want your coworkers to walk into your home and say, ‘Damn, you live like this?’”), Derek cooks pasta, Chris brings a salad, and Will bakes a pie. 

“Wow, Poindexter,” Derek whistles as Will sets the pie on his kitchen table. “Trying to steal Eric’s thunder?”

“Shut up,” Will snaps, but he looks almost pleased. “He gave me the recipe, anyway.”

Derek winks. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell.”

Will, predictably, flushes. He’s been doing that a lot more often than usual lately, and Derek’s not trying to be weird, but there’s definitely something captivating about it. It’s just that he has so many different blushes for so many different occasions. Sometimes there’s a splotchy red on his cheeks or a soft pink just across his nose, and it’s just incredible to Derek how someone as emotionally stunted as William Poindexter can still say so much without actually saying anything at all.

It’s a very weird thing for him to focus on, though, so Derek blames it on the poet in him and tries to stop noticing it. 

The dinner part of the evening goes pretty well, actually. The food is great, and Whiskey asks minimal questions about working in the publishing industry, which is good, because Will and Chris have very minimal knowledge of it. Everyone’s getting along pretty well, too, which, let’s be honest, Derek was _very_ nervous about. Derek loves Whiskey, but the guy can be pretty stand-off-ish, and he wasn’t sure how well that would mix with Mr. Uptight and Perpetual Ray of Sunshine Chow. But the four of them spend the dinner chatting, laughing, and (tragically) sharing embarrassing stories about Derek, so he’s pretty ready to mark the night as a success.

Will is in the middle of gathering up everyone’s plates and carrying them to the sink (he outright refused when Derek offered to wash them instead), when Chris announces, “So, who’s ready for movie night?” and pulls a DVD out of his bag.

Derek looks at the DVD, then at Chris, and narrows his eyes. Chris simply beams back at him.

“Hell yeah,” Whiskey says with approval. “Nurse never wants to watch superhero movies. He thinks he’s too cool for them, or something.”

Still washing dishes, Will snorts. Derek narrows his eyes further, because that’s only _partially_ why he turns down every superhero movie Whiskey suggests they watch. The main and very important reason Derek refuses to watch them is because his entire life is a superhero movie.

“Well, good thing I brought the very best one, then,” Chris says, giving his DVD an enthusiastic shake.

Whiskey gives Chris a doubtful look. “You’re kidding right? That is _not_ the best one.”

“Yeah, what about _Black Panther? The Dark Knight? Into the Spider-verse?_ ” Derek asks.

Chris shrugs. ‘“I mean those are good, but.”

Derek shakes his head, then turns to Will. “Come on, back me up here.”

“Nope, Chris is right,” Will says without turning around. “ _Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2_ is the best.”

“Unbelievable,” Derek sighs, but Chris just continues to beam at him.

So Will finishes drying the dishes, Chris pops the DVD in the DVD player, and the four of them sit on the couch to watch the movie.

It turns out _Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2_ isn’t that bad of a movie, even though he finds himself paying more attention to the way Chris loudly and off-key sings along to the music than the movie itself. Although, if he’s being honest, what Derek finds is really capturing his attention is the fact that Will chooses to sit next to him, rather than Chris or even Whiskey. 

It shouldn’t be weird. It’s not weird, actually, because they’re friends, and all they’re doing is sitting next to each other on a couch. But the couch is really small, and Will is pressed up right against him, so Derek’s brain decides to make it weird, anyway.

It’s just that — well, okay. Derek has always known Will was hot. But he was such an asshole for so long that it didn’t matter how objectively good looking he was. Except for it turns out that Will isn’t as much of an asshole as he thought he was. Sure, he’s stubborn as hell, but he’s also reliable, and hardworking, and _kind_ in ways that Derek never expected. And the sweater he’s wearing feels really soft, and he keeps huffing out a laugh near Derek’s ear every time there’s a funny scene, and his nose crinkles every time he smiles at the screen, and —

“What?” Will says suddenly in a soft voice, and Derek realizes he’s been caught.

“Uh,” Derek says, still staring, and watches as soft pink blooms across Will’s face under his scrutiny. He feels his own face heat up, and then, after another moment of stammering, he says very loudly, “I’m going to get more food,” and jumps off the couch to head towards the kitchen.

He opens the fridge door, though he isn’t really looking for anything, and takes a deep breath.

“Chill, Derek,” he mutters under his breath. “Get it together.”

But after wrestling with his emotions while staring into the fridge can make a guy pretty hungry, and he realizes he was too busy stuffing himself with spaghetti and pie to try Chris’ salad earlier. So he shovels some leftover salad onto a plate and is just about to inhale a mouthful, when all of the sudden his fork gets smacked out of his hand and sails across the kitchen.

Derek spins to find Will, who’s staring at him in alarm.

“What the _fuck,_ ” he splutters.

“Sorry! I’m sorry,” Will blurts out. “Just — there’s walnuts in the salad.”

Derek gapes at him until he hears the movie pause in the other room, and then suddenly Chris and Whiskey are joining them in the kitchen, too. “What’s going on?” Chris asks, looking concerned.

Will jerks his chin in Derek’s direction. “Derek here just nearly went into anaphylactic shock.”

Whiskey grimaces. “Oh yeah, probably should’ve told you there were walnuts in the salad.”

Chris gasps, looking distraught. “Derek! You have a nut allergy? Why didn’t you tell me!”

“I — ” Derek begins, and then stops and looks back at Will. “Wait, how did _you_ know I have a nut allergy?”

“Uh, you told me?” Derek continues to stare expectantly. “You know, that time we were — uh, when we were working, and I asked if you wanted some of my trail mix?”

Derek knows instantly what he’s talking about. One night, Jack had assigned the two of them a stake-out mission. They’d spent hours on the roof of the SunTrust Bank, keeping an eye out for their targets, and Derek had forgotten to pack a snack, so Will had offered some of his trail mix, but Derek had said no. He’d almost forgotten the interaction, and he’s surprised Will didn’t, because…

“Dude, that was like two months ago.”

Will’s face turns that splotchy red. “So?”

Derek thinks, for the first time in a long time, about his days back at Andover. He’d had a close-knit group of friends, only they’d turned out to be not very close at all, because he hasn’t spoken to a single one of them since graduation. And, looking back, they weren’t very good friends, either. They were mean-spirited, annoying, and for the life of them, could never remember Derek’s peanut allergy. He even lived with a few of them for a time, and still they were always baking peanut butter cookies, or offering him brownies with walnuts in them, or asking why he never got Reese’s from the vending machine.

At the time, Derek hadn’t thought much of it. It wasn’t like they couldn’t remember something important, something that made him who he was — like that he was born in New York, or he was an Aquarius, or something. They just happened to forget that if Derek consumed some sort of nut, he could die. 

It isn’t until this very moment, standing in his kitchen in Samwell with his friends, that he realizes maybe it was more important than he realized. Because now he has Whiskey, who asks him to invite his work friends to dinner, and Chris, who’s always willing to listen to his ranking of 20th Century American authors when he doesn’t know who any of them are, and Will, who barely tolerated Derek half a year ago and still remembers something about him that he’s only mentioned once.

But that’s just who Will is, Derek realizes. He listens, and he notices things, and he _cares_ so fiercely about the people who matter to him. It doesn’t matter if they’re at the office, or on a mission, or in Derek’s kitchen. He’s always had Derek’s back. He always will.

And he’s been trying _so_ hard to ignore the very persistent part of him that catalogs all of Will’s blushes, the part that leans into his comforting warmth when they’re on a stake-out and the night is cold, the part that’s stomach flips every time he says something that makes Will laugh. But the odds were stacked against him from the moment they became partners, because after all this time, how could Derek not fall for him?

“What are you staring at me like that for?” Will finally demands. Both his neck and his ears are red now, and Derek tries not to stare harder.

He swallows. “Nothing.” He manages a smile. “Just...thanks for having my back.”

“Yeah, well,” Will shrugs, looking awkward. “Whatever.”

The word itself is dismissive, but there’s too much honesty behind his tone to take it that way. The way he says it...well, it just sounds different. It sounds like _Of course._ It sounds like _Always._

But before Derek can dwell some more on how completely and utterly fucked he is, Chris asks, “So...are we ready to finish the movie now?”

“Sure, Chris,” Derek says, quickly tearing his eyes away from Will’s, and ignoring the knowing look on Chris’ face.

So the four of them sit back down on the couch, shoulder to shoulder, and Derek watches the end of the movie, rather than the way Will looks at him when he thinks Derek isn’t looking.

  
  


_iv._

Honestly, Derek should've seen this coming.

Look, he doesn’t want to brag, but he and Will have been kind of awesome together lately. Bank robberies, break-ins, even active terrorist threats — they’ve been stopping them left and right. It’d be impossible for people not to notice. But when the public starts recognizing you for all your success with crime fighting, the Bad Guys start to notice you, too, and that’s how Derek finds himself kidnapped and strapped to a chair in a small concrete room in God knows where, being interrogated by a scary dude with a creepy looking mustache.

“Listen, buddy. We can do this the easy way, or the hard way,” Mustache Guy snarls. “You can give us the information we need and we can let you go, or we can mess up that pretty face of yours until you give it up. But either way, we’re gonna get what we need from you, you understand? All I need is for you to tell me who you’re working for.”

Derek hesitates as Mustache Guy watches impatiently, then says, “You think I’m pretty?”

He doesn’t even have time to brace himself before Mustache Guy is punching him square in the face. “Ow,” he whines, almost unconsciously.

“That’s the least of what we can do to you,” Mustache Guy says threateningly. “But if you wanna start out small, that’s fine. Where’s the Flame?”

Derek blinks. “The who?”

Mustache Guy makes a frustrated sound. “Your partner!” He grits out.

Derek blinks again. He at first assumes the name originates from Will’s hair, until he remembers his hair isn’t visible beneath his mask and realizes —

“What, you call him that because his suit is red?” Derek demands, and almost laughs. “He doesn’t even have, like, fire powers or anything. That feels a little _too_ badass, honestly, but whatever. What’s my superhero name? Is it something cool, like — ”

But Derek doesn’t get to find out what it is, because the guy punches him in the face again.

“Just give us a little something...his name, his location...and this will all go away,” Mustache Guy promises, though his smile looks more threatening than reassuring.

Derek’s been in this job long enough to know that what he’s saying can’t be true. In fact, the information Derek has is probably the sole reason they’re keeping him alive. He doesn’t know who this guy is, but he has the same tattoo on his shoulder that the guys from the drug ring they took down a week ago did. It’s more than likely they’ll make Derek pay for that no matter how much information he feeds them. Leaving him alive would put their lives, their freedom, and most importantly, their business, in jeopardy. Once they get what they want, he’ll be of no further use to them.

Not that it matters. There’s nothing they could do that would ever make him give up information about Will, anyway.

“What, you think I keep tabs on that guy?” Derek says, and tries to scoff, but his nose is bleeding, so he’s pretty sure it just comes out as a wheeze. “We’re just coworkers, man, it’s not like I — Jesus _Christ!_ ” He shouts as Mustache Guy delivers another punch, this time to his stomach.

“You guys make me sick,” Mustache Guy spits. “You run around the city in your tights, thinking you’re so high and above it all — ” Suddenly, he rips a knife out of his back pocket, and his eyes widen as he presses it against his throat. “What I wouldn’t give to — ”

“That’s enough.”

Mustache Guy flinches and moves away. The man who’s been standing in the corner of the room, who flashed Derek a menacing smile when his blindfold was ripped off but remained silent and watchful throughout the interrogation, steps forward. He’s tall, and muscular — much bigger than Mustache Guy — and he has a puckered scar on one side of his face. 

Derek swallows.

“Sorry, boss,” Mustache Guy says. “I just want to — ”

“I _said,_ that’s enough,” the man practically roars. Even Derek flinches, and Mustache Guy backs farther away. The man with the scar gives him a look, and then turns to Derek with a sinister smile. “He’ll give us the information we need when he’s ready. Won’t you?”

Derek doesn’t answer, and instead tries to school his face into something that doesn’t look as terrified as he feels.

The man with the scar scoffs. “It doesn’t matter. We have it on good authority he’ll come for you eventually, and then we’ll have everything we need.”

Derek isn’t so sure about that, because Will’s not an idiot. He knows a trap when he sees one.

Still, he says, with all the confidence he can manage, “Looks like I’m not much use to you then, after all.”

The man raises one eyebrow. “A fact you’d be wise to remember.” Derek does his best not to flinch. “Come on,” he says, moving to the door, and Mustache Guy follows him, but not before punching Derek in the face one last time. 

Derek waits until the door is shut to let out a relieved sigh.

He’s not sure how much time he spends in that locked room, waiting for the door to open again. He tries to think of a good plan for escape, but he doesn’t come up with much. His restraints are tight, and the room he’s in is gray, concrete, and nondescript, with only one barred door that’s likely guarded. And even if he were to escape, what would he do next? He was unconscious and blindfolded when they brought him here, so he has no idea where he actually is. He could be in an abandoned warehouse, or underground, or in Canada. Even if he escaped undetected, these guys unmasked him the second he was brought in. They know what he looks like, and could easily track him down, even if he makes it out. Besides, he doesn’t have any of his weapons with him, and he’s never been good at fighting with his fists. That’s Will’s forte, not his.

_Will._ Derek wonders what he’s up to right now. Has he realized Derek’s gone? Is he looking for him? He hopes not. Derek’s the one who was doing night patrols alone, with only a measly crossbow, without letting anyone know where he was going. Derek’s the one who wasn’t being careful, who had been captured from behind and disarmed the second he let his guard down. Will shouldn’t be the one to get caught up in Derek’s stupid mistake, not with how dangerous these guys are. Mustache Guy is big, but Derek or Will could probably outsmart him and take him down. The man with the scar is a different story. He gets bad vibes from him — he seems smart, cunning, the kind of guy that’s always one step ahead. 

Derek’s just beginning to wonder which one will be sent in to interrogate him next when the door finally opens. But it isn’t Mustache Guy, and it isn’t the man with the scar, either. Instead, it’s William Poindexter, looking out of breath and holding a handful of keys.

Derek is too stunned to do anything but stare at him, and Will stares right back.

“You know, this shit only ever happens to you,” Will says finally.

“Hello to you, too.”

Will lets out a noise that sounds like a mix between a growl and a shout, but doesn’t say anything else as he crouches down in front of him to untie the ropes around Derek’s waist. He tries to wait, quiet and patient, but he can’t help let out a muttered “ow” when Will moves to untie his wrists, which have been chafing for hours now.

“Sorry,” Will says softly, too busy to look up, but his touch is gentler when he resumes his work. Finally, the ropes fall to the ground, and Will stands to his feet.

“Come on,” he says, and Derek doesn’t have to be told twice. 

The door to Derek’s cell leads into a long hallway with more concrete walls. On the floor is the Mustache Guy, who had evidently been guarding the door. Derek isn’t sure if he’s dead, or just unconscious, and he doesn’t want to ask. He and Will have killed before, but very seldom, and only in necessary and extreme cases — that’s the Agency's policy. If he had to, he’d guess this was one of those cases, but he doesn’t ask, and Will doesn’t elaborate, just steps over the body and moves down the hallway. Derek quickly follows after.

“What is this place, anyway?” He asks.

“Abandoned apartment building downtown.” 

“Not Canada, then,” Derek murmurs to himself. Will shoots a confused glance over his shoulder, but doesn’t stop moving forward, leading him down a second hallway that’s identical to the first. “How did you find me, anyway?”

“Samwell installed a tracker in your arm when you were hired, remember?”

Derek does remember. At the time, he’d thought it was a little creepy. Now, he just feels grateful.

“Where’s the team at, anyway?” Derek asks as they turn into another hallway. This one has a door at the end, thank God.

Will glances back at him as they move quickly, but the glance is long enough for Derek to register the confusion on his face. “What?”

Derek blinks. “You came _alone?_ ”

Will’s shoulders hunch up towards his ears. “Not exactly — ”

“I can’t fucking _believe_ you!” Derek hisses. “Are you _serious?_ Do you know how _dangerous_ — ”

“Yes, I _do_ know.” Will stops in the middle of the hallway, whirling around to face him, and Derek skids to a stop. “It was dangerous, and risky, and maybe a little stupid, but if you thought for even a _second_ that I wasn’t going to come for you, then you’re a fucking idiot.”

It’s the first time Will has looked at him — really looked at him — since he broke into Derek’s cell. There’s very little light in the building, but still Derek can see that the expression on Will’s face is one that he’s never seen before. It’s defiant, and determined, but it’s a little scared, too. How long has Derek been down here? How long has Will been worried about him, wondering where he was, wondering if he’d ever find him?

“Will — ” Derek starts. 

“And anyway,” Will continues, suddenly looking away. “It wasn’t that hard. There was only that one guy keeping watch.”

Derek furrows his eyebrows. “Wait. Just o—”

But before he can finish, the door at the end of the hallway bursts open, and Derek and Will turn to see the man with the scar enter the hallway.

“You know, for stealthy vigilantes, you two are quite loud.”

He stands only a few feet in front of them, but it’s close enough for Derek to see the gun in his hand. 

Derek looks over at Will and mutters, “Please tell me you have a plan.”

“Something like it,” Will grits out, and then says to the man at the end of the hall, with surprising confidence, “We don’t want any trouble.”

He makes a contemplative noise. “You know, I don’t think that’s true. I think if it were, you wouldn’t have taken down my guys last week. You wouldn’t have taken out Brutus when you made your escape.” He tosses his gun into his other hand, almost casually. “It’s a shame. I was having such fun with your friend earlier.”

Will lets out a growl that Derek has never, not on any mission, heard him make before, and steps defensively in front of him. “Well, I hate that I had to cut the party short, but we had a prior engagement.”

The man laughs once. “Well, I _hate_ to see you go so soon. I never did get the information I wanted.” He looks down at the gun. “But of course, you have to realize I can’t let you leave.”

Then several things happen at once. The man raises his gun just as Will shoves Derek to the ground, and there’s a gunshot. For one terrifying second, Derek panics, immediately reaching out to Will, desperate with thoughts of _No please he can’t,_ but in the next second, a visibly unharmed Will is dragging Derek to his feet and down the rest of the hallway, past the man with the scar, who lies collapsed on the floor, and through the door, where Chris Chow stands on the other side, urging them to hurry.

Then they run, not stopping to talk or ask questions, though Derek feels like he has a million. They weave their way around buildings and through back alleys, and Derek hardly knows where they’re going until they finally come to a stop on the street beneath his apartment building. Exhausted but relieved, Derek leans against the brick wall to catch his breath.

“I thought you said you came alone?” He asks Will, panting for breath.

Will is bent over, hands on his knees, wheezing. “I said ‘not exactly.’”

Derek looks over to Chris, who’s also hunched over, catching his breath. This job, as rewarding as it is, is tough. It takes a lot of bravery to save people, but to take someone’s life sometimes feels like taking away part of yourself, no matter how necessary it is. Derek knows this wasn’t Chris’ first time, but still. That doesn’t always make it any easier. 

He’s not sure what to say, but if it weren’t for Chris, he’d be dead, so what he settles on is, “Thanks.”

Chris looks up. “Of course.” And then, before Derek even has time to react, he’s being wrapped in a bone crushing hug. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

There’s something about Chris’ hugs and the way they always make him feel instantly better. He knows that’s his thing — as an empath, he can make an exhausted person sleep, and the most anxious person feel instantly chill. But at the same time, that’s just who Chris is. He’s a constant source of light, someone he can always turn to for comfort and assurance. Regardless of his powers, Chris’ hugs will always feel soothing, so he closes his eyes and sighs as he hugs back.

“I’m glad, too,” he says, and looks over Chris’ shoulder at Will, who’s watching the two of them with a look he can’t decipher. “You better get in here too, Poindorkster.”

Will huffs, but obeys, and Derek finds himself enveloped in two sets of arms that feel strong, and safe, and like home. The three of them stay like that for a while, and though it doesn’t feel long enough, it’s a cold night, and he’s exhausted, and really ready to put on pajamas and go to sleep.

“I should go in,” Derek murmurs. “Come up with some sort of excuse for Whiskey.”

Chris snorts, finally withdrawing from the hug. “Yeah, good luck explaining that shiner on your eye.”

“What?” Will says sharply. He steps back, gently taking Derek’s face in his hands, examining the damage. Despite the situation, Derek feels himself flush under the scrutiny. 

“You didn’t notice?” Chris asks.

“It was dark. I was distracted,” Will mutters, not tearing his gaze away from Derek’s face. 

He has yet to see his own reflection, and though his eye has been throbbing for several hours now, he really only suffered through a few punches. It hurts like hell, sure, but Will got him out of there before any real damage could be done.

From the look on Will’s face, you’d think his injuries were much worse than they are.

“Derek…” Will says, and there are no words to describe how tender and despairing his voice sounds when he says Derek’s name like that.

“It’s just some bruises,” he tries, but Will is brushing his thumb across one bruise on Derek’s cheek, which makes him flinch. 

Will withdraws his hand, and Derek tries to convince himself he doesn’t miss the contact. 

His mouth hardens into a straight line. “I’m sorry.”

“Will, I’ll put an ice pack on it when I go inside. It’s fine.”

But Will is still frowning, and won’t meet Derek’s gaze. “This never should’ve happened. I should’ve been there, or — or it should’ve been me instead, or — ” 

“Will,” Derek says again, firmer this time, and he finally meets his eyes, but he still looks guilty. “Stop it, alright? None of this is your fault.”

Will chews his bottom lip. “You’re okay, though?”

“Yeah,” Derek says, but his face doesn’t change from that pensive expression. “Will, hey, come on. I’m fine.”

But still, Will stares at him, and he knows Chris is the empath, not Will, but Derek still feels broken open under his gaze. He feels certain that Will, the whole city, the entire universe, can see what Derek feels for him. Because he’s never met someone who cares so aggressively, so openly, especially about him. And even though it’s stupid that he’s let himself feel this way about someone he can’t possibly have, even though he’s tried his best to move on and get over it, he can’t help but think that no matter how much time has passed, there will never not be a part of him that feels this way about William Poindexter.

It’s only seconds, but it feels like it takes years for Will to finally tear his gaze away from Derek’s. “Okay,” he says with a decisive nod, and that’s that.

So Derek says goodnight to Will and Chris and heads inside his building, but not before spotting that same knowing look on Chris’ face. And Will may not be an empath, but Chris is, and you can’t get away with lying to someone like that. Derek would know — he’s tried.

And he knows that somewhere in his near future is an awkward and probably painful heart-to-heart with his best friend, but that’s for another day. Tonight, all he needs is to change into pajamas, and sleep for a very, very long time.

  
  


_v._

“You should tell him how you feel.”

It’s said completely out of the blue, and Derek is so shocked that he drops his avocado toast. “Excuse me?”

“I mean it!” Chris insists.

It’s been almost a week since Derek’s escape. He’d had a few days off work after the incident, because Jack had insisted he needed his rest. So after coming up with an excuse for Whiskey about going out of town for the day and forgetting to charge his phone, and a lot of well-needed sleep, Derek returned to the Agency feeling almost as good as new. His coworkers had been unnecessarily gentle with him at first -- always looking at him with concern, always asking how he was doing or if he needed anything. Even Chris and Will had been treading delicately with him, and while it was sort of sweet, it was mostly annoying. Still, it meant that Chris hadn’t approached him with any subjects he very much did not want to discuss, but even when everyone started treating him like normal again, Chris never brought it up. He’d hoped, foolishly, that he was in the clear, but then Saturday rolled around and Chris had asked him to brunch.

So here he is, half-eaten avocado toast dropped face first in his yogurt, being cornered by his best friend. 

To avoid coming up with a response, Derek looks down to slide the avocado toast out of the yogurt and takes a tentative bite. It doesn’t taste half-bad mixed with yogurt, honestly.

Finally, through bites of avocado yogurt toast, Derek says, very casually, “I have no idea what you’re referring to.”

“What I’m referring to is the fact that you have a very obvious crush on our best friend William Poindexter, and though it is obvious, I think you should explicitly make it clear to him that you have this crush.”

Derek nearly chokes on his toast. So much for casual.

Chris sighs, clearly frustrated by his antics. “Derek, come on. Give me one good reason why you shouldn’t tell him how you feel.”

As much fun as it would be to deny any of it, Chris is smart, and he knows it’d do no good. Instead, he resignedly sets his toast back on his plate. “How much time do you have?”

Chris crosses his arms in front of his chest and raises his eyebrows expectantly.

“Okay, fine. For starters, Will doesn’t feel the same way.”

Chris laughs out loud at that, but when he notices the blank way Derek’s staring at him, he stops. “Wait, you’re serious?” Derek just raises his eyebrows and Chris sighs almost pityingly. “Oh, you stupid, stupid boy.”

“What?”

“Derek. Will laughs at all your jokes, even when they’re not funny. He looks at you like you’ve hung the moon and the stars. He’d do _anything_ for you.”

“He’d do anything for you, too,” Derek argues.

“Yeah, but he doesn’t want to make out with me,” Chris points out.

“C’mon, Chris, don’t sell yourself short. You’re a catch!”

Chris rolls his eyes, though he looks a little pleased. “Thank you, but stop deflecting.”

Derek lets out a long sigh. “Look, Chris, even if he felt the same way I do...it just wouldn’t work out, okay? Will’s my partner. We’re _coworkers_. If something went wrong, what would I do? How could I stand to see him every day?”

Chris frowns. “I mean, I do see your point, but that’s never stopped Shitty and Lardo.”

Shitty and Lardo are two other heroes at the agency. Shitty is one of the other few employees at Samwell without powers. He’s really loud, and he says a lot of inappropriate things, but sometimes those things are also really wise, so Derek weirdly looks up to him anyway. Lardo, meanwhile, has powers of invisibility, and is way more chill than Derek could ever hope to be. The two of them are partners, just like him and Will, and they’ve been dating almost as long as Derek’s known them, though they’re pretty private about it. It took him a little while to figure out they were together at all. 

“Yeah, but Shitty and Lardo are...weird,” Derek counters. “Plus, they’re practically married.”

Chris gives Derek a look. “So are you and Will.”

Derek chokes on his orange juice this time.

Chris sighs, and places his hands flat on the table, like he does at work when he’s talking about the probability of a mission’s success, or trying to explain how to hack into a security system. “Look, I’m saying this not to meddle, or try to steer you wrong, or because I get a kick out of playing match-maker. I’m saying all of this because you and Will are my friends, and because I want what’s best for you. Which means I really mean it when I say that you two would be really good together.”

Derek looks down, swirling the orange juice around in his cup so he can avoid whatever expression is on Chris’ face. Still he says, almost hesitantly, “Yeah?” 

“Yeah,” Chris agrees. “Will brings you up all the time, when you’re not around. You make him really happy, Der. I think if you told him, you could be really happy, too.”

Derek lets out a long sigh. The thing is, Chris is really smart when it comes to people. Maybe Derek would be, too, if he were an empath, but it’s a fact that Chris rarely has it wrong when it comes to these kinds of things. But just because he could be right about this doesn’t mean that Derek’s wrong. There are too many what ifs. What if Derek’s right, and Will doesn’t feel that way? What if he does, and they get together, but then they break up? What if things go horribly wrong, to the point where Derek can barely stand to look at him every day? These are all valid concerns, and Derek can’t just ignore them to chase after something his heart very foolishly wants.

Still, Chris looks so hopeful and excited about the prospect. He can’t crush the guy’s dreams. Especially not when he’s the one paying for their brunch.

“I’ll think about it. Maybe,” Derek says reluctantly, and Chris beams.

  
  


Derek does not think about it.

Look, things are really stressful at work lately. He and Will are always taking on dangerous assignments or strategizing their missions or doing paperwork, so really, Derek has no spare time to be thinking about his feelings, let alone his love life. Instead, Derek devotes all his free time to doing what he does best: ignoring the problem until it goes away. 

It’s easier said than done, because as much as he wants to deny it, he knows deeply that the feelings he has for Will go beyond a regular crush. But all cuts heal with time, and he doesn’t think it’s unreasonable to imagine that his feelings for Will can, too. And they probably would, too, if Will weren’t so...well. _Will._

He’s not sure when it starts. He thinks it must have been after his kidnapping, but maybe he’s wrong, and that’s only when he started to notice. But it doesn’t necessarily matter when it happened. What matters is the undeniable fact that something is different between them.

An outsider probably wouldn’t notice. In fact, on surface level, the way he and Will act towards each other is the same way they always have. They bicker over silly things and tease each other at any given opportunity, but Will still has Derek’s coffee order memorized, and Derek still knows which Vine compilations to play on YouTube when Will is keyed up and stressed. None of this is anything new. 

What’s new is that Will’s smiles, which used to be so hard to earn, are now given to Derek freely. What’s new is that Will brings Derek coffee nearly every morning without him having to ask. What’s new is the way Will leans into Derek’s touch, easily welcomes an arm slung around Will’s shoulder, a hand ruffling his hair, instead of laughing and shoving him away like he used to. What’s new is the silly doodles Will makes in the margins of their mission notes and leaves on Derek’s desk, just to make him laugh.

And these little gestures which should mean nothing and yet mean so much more, keep making Derek think about his conversation with Chris over brunch, the way he’d laughed in disbelief when Derek had insisted Will couldn’t possibly feel the same way, and he wonders if he really and truly has it wrong. 

But Will is already one of his closest friends, and the person who makes Derek happier than anyone else he’s ever known, and on top of all of that, he can’t possibly feel for Derek the same way Derek feels for him. It’d be asking too much.

The whole thing is very confusing and frustrating. Derek wishes Will would just stop being so kind and friendly and annoying all the time so he can go back to ignoring his feelings for him in peace. But Will doesn’t, and they still have a job to do, so for months, Derek pines in silence and almost misses the time when Will couldn’t stand him. It wasn’t better, but it certainly felt easier.

To make matters worse, their new assignment is another bank robbery. They haven’t dealt with a bank robbery since the first one, only a few months after they’d become partners, when they were still learning how to get along. The mission was only a year ago, but it feels like decades, because that was the moment where everything changed and Derek realized the two of them could be friends, after all. Which means that on top of all of his other pesky feelings, he’s all nostalgic and sentimental. It’s awful.

Luckily for Derek, this bank robbery is a little different, which means his sentimental feelings can’t exactly get the best of him. There are three bad guys to take down this time, not two. Fortunately, this is knowledge they have ahead of time, which means that for this mission, Eric is joining them.

Derek decides to consider this a good thing. He likes Eric. He’s kind and sweet but also surprisingly funny, not to mention his super speed makes him an ideal teammate on any sort of mission. He takes this as a sign that the mission will go over smoothly. 

It does, at first. It’s a Sunday, meaning the bank is closed, so they don’t have to worry about any civilians being held hostage or getting hurt, which is a relief. The bank is huge, which is a slight issue, because it means they have to actually hunt down the bad guys, but Derek shoots Bad Guy #1 with a stun gun when he finds loitering in the lobby upon their arrival at the bank, and Will punches Bad Guy #2 and knocks him out cold when he finds him upstairs. But even after splitting up to cover more ground, Bad Guy #3 is nowhere to be found.

It’s about half an hour later, when Derek, Will, and Eric are meeting in the lobby to do a second sweep of the bank as a team, when they find Bad Guy #3. Or, more accurately, he finds them. 

It happens very quickly. Out of the corner of his eye, Derek spots a masked figure leap to his feet from behind the teller desk, and before he can react, Bad Guy #3 is raising his gun and pointing it straight at Derek. 

But just as he’s about to fire, Will shoves him out of the way. 

When the gun goes off, someone screams, loud and panicked. It isn’t until Derek’s thudding to the ground that he realizes it’s him.

When he looks up, Eric’s tearing the gun out of Bad Guy #3’s hands fast as lightning, knocking him over the head with it and rendering him unconscious. And then he’s turning to Will, who’d hit the ground after Derek had, terrified at what he might find. Will had been right there when the gun had gone off, he’d been _right there,_ if something’s happened to him he’ll never — 

But Will is sitting up next to him and he’s...fine. He looks a little confused, and definitely shaken up, but he’s not bleeding, and he’s not wounded. He’s fine.

Still, Derek grabs Will’s shoulders, almost like he doesn’t believe it. He’s not sure if he’s trying to steady Will or himself. “Are you okay?”

Will blinks. “Yeah. Yeah, I think so.”

Derek just stares. “You — shit, Will. You almost got shot.”

Will looks down, almost as if double-checking to make sure he didn’t actually get shot after all.

“Huh. Yeah,” Will says casually, as if he’s just realized it’s raining, not that he nearly died. “I didn’t, though.”

“But you almost did,” Derek says with a frown.

“But I _didn’t_ ,” Will says with gritted teeth. “Are we seriously arguing about this right now?”

He gets up off the floor, extending his hand to Derek’s. Will lifts him off the floor when he finally grabs his hand, but Derek almost forgets to. His mind is muddled, moving in a billion different directions, and he feels confused, but mostly panicked, and still a little scared, and like there’s something really important happening right in front of his face, and he keeps missing it.

“You keep doing that,” Derek finally realizes. Will raises his eyebrows, perplexed, and Derek elaborates, “You keep saving me. Why do you keep doing that?”

Will blinks slowly, and then quickly looks away. “We’re partners.”

Derek’s mouth feels dry. “Will.”

Will turns back to him, his gaze unreadable, and the weight of the realization suddenly hits Derek with full force. He keeps finding himself in impossibly dangerous situations, and each time, Will never fails to save him. Even if it’s too big of a risk. Even if it means Will might get hurt, too.

_Holy shit, I love him,_ Derek realizes, and then, _I can’t keep doing this to him._

Finally, Will swallows and says, “Derek, I — ”

But whatever Will was going to say gets cut off by Eric’s interruption of, “Look, I hate to break up this lover’s quarrel, but we need to get out of here before the police show up.”

Will immediately blushes at Eric’s comment, and Derek feels his face burn, but he’s right. (About the police thing. And, okay, probably the lover’s quarrel, too.)

So the three of them quickly exit the bank and make their way back to Headquarters, and he and Will don’t say a word on their way back, and they don’t speak to each other when they finally get to Headquarters, either. 

But that’s okay. He doesn’t think there’s anything else that needs to be said.

  
  


_+i._

The next day, Derek knocks on the door to Jack’s office and pokes his head in. “Hey, Jack. Can I talk to you for a minute?”

Jack looks up from his desk, smiling when he sees Derek. “Sure, take a seat.”

Derek smiles gratefully and lowers himself into the chair across from Jack’s desk. 

“By the way, great job with the mission yesterday,” Jack says. “You and Will have been working really well together, lately.”

Derek winces slightly. “Yeah, uh, that’s actually kinda what I wanted to talk to you about?”

Jack’s eyebrows furrow, concerned. “Is there something wrong?”

“Uh, not _wrong_ , necessarily…” Derek shifts in his seat. “Just...I think it’d be better if Will and I weren’t partners.”

Jack blinks, visibly startled. “Really?”

Derek lifts one shoulder in a shrug. “I just don’t think we’re a good fit.”

Jack frowns. “I guess I’m just a little confused. I mean, you two are some of the most hardworking, strongest Heroes we have, especially when you work together as a team.”

Derek shifts in his seat again. “It’s just...I feel like I bring him down. I’m clumsy and always getting into trouble and he always has to stop to help so I just...I feel like I’m a distraction.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Derek. I’m sure you help him just as much as he helps you.”

“Yeah, but…” Derek hesitates. “It’s different.”

“How?”

“I just — ” Derek starts, and then swallows. “I just can’t help but think that someday I’m going to get myself into something that Will can’t help me with, only he’s going to try anyway, and then he’ll get himself hurt in the process, and it’ll be all my fault.”

Jack blinks. “Oh,” he says, in a voice filled with something Derek doesn’t quite recognize. Hesitancy? Confusion? Understanding?

He looks away. “I’m sure this screws up a lot of your planned assignments, and I’m sorry. But I wouldn’t bring it up if I didn’t feel it was important. I just — I know this job is dangerous and it comes with a lot of risks, but if something happened to him, and it was _my_ fault, I couldn’t live with myself.”

Jack nods solemnly, his eyes filled with sympathy and concern. “It’s alright, Derek, I understand.”

Derek blinks. “You do?”

“I do,” Jack says, and sighs. “Given how well you two operate as a team, I’m not exactly sure that this is the right call. But if you’re this worried about it, then you need to do what’s right for you. I’ve already got some assignments lined up, so it may take a few days and some paperwork, but I can arrange for you and Will to work separately again. As long as you’re sure that’s what you want.” 

“It is,” Derek says quickly, wiping his sweaty palms on his pants. “I’m sure.”

Jack hesitates for a moment, and that strange look crosses his face again. But it’s gone just as soon as it came, replaced by a small smile. “Alright. Consider it done.”

And that’s that.

  
  


Figuring out how to break the news to Will is the tricky part. It’d be easier if the new arrangement could go into effect right away, and Jack could be the one to inform him. They’d get their new assignments, go their separate ways, and that’d be that. 

But life goes on, and there are bad guys to hunt and the city to save, so two days later, when Derek’s still trying to figure out how to break the news, he and Will are assigned a new mission.

Their new assignment is much more scaled back than the missions they’ve been doing lately, which is a welcomed break in what’s been a very stressful few weeks. They’ve received a tip that a man named Justin Boland — CEO of NoLogicTech, a million-dollar computer company — has drafted blueprints for a machine that will allow him to go back to December 8, 2006, in the hopes that he can prevent his wife’s untimely death. 

“So...it’s a time machine?” Derek had asked at the briefing, bewildered.

“Not exactly,” Shitty, who's supervising the mission, says. “It’s more like a reset button. It’ll only take him back to the specific date he’s designed for it to do.”

“Like a time machine,” Will dead-panned.

Shitty had blinked, and Derek and Will had just stared back. “Okay, fine. It’s a time machine,” he admitted.

All in all, the whole thing feels a little too sci-fi for Derek’s taste, but the tip came from a trusted informant, so the mission has become top priority. Besides, the problem isn’t the existence of the time machine itself. Rather, creating a machine of that size and magnitude would cause an Earthquake so destructive that the entire state of Massachusetts would sink into the Atlantic. 

Luckily, Derek and Will’s job is simple. All they have to do is break into Boland’s home and steal the blueprints. Shitty and Lardo have been on a stake out for weeks now, and know Boland’s schedule down to a tee: when he eats, when he shits, and when he’s out of the house. So with the two of them acting as lookouts while Boland’s at work, and with Chris disabling the security system beforehand, Derek and Will are going to break in, steal the blueprints, and get out of there, easy-peasy.

But the day of the mission, Derek realizes the mission isn’t going to be as simple as he thought. Firstly, Boland’s house is _huge_ — it looks like a smaller version of the Avengers campus. He has no idea how they’re going to find the blueprints in here, much less where to start.

And secondly, Will isn’t talking to him.

He hadn’t uttered a single word on their journey to Boland’s, which Derek had found a little odd, but had figured was nothing. But then when they’d arrived at the house and Derek had said, “This is why we need to eat the rich,” Will hadn’t laughed, or said something like, “Says the guy who grew up in a brownstone.” And now, when Derek asks him what the plan is, Will shoots him a look and says, “Just follow me.”

His tone is short and dismissive, one Derek would ordinarily attribute to his no-nonsense attitude during missions. But Will is unusually tense, and the look he’d given Derek had been surprisingly harsh. It’s a look he hasn’t seen since they could barely stand each other.

But they’ve got a job to do, and Will’s inexplicable moodiness can be explained later. So Derek frowns, but says, “Okay,” and follows Will’s lead.

They start in the living room, rummaging through papers on the coffee table and flipping through notebooks left on the sofa. (For a rich guy with a huge mansion, he’s surprisingly messy.) Not having any luck, they move into the kitchen, the dining room, and the home office, but no instructions for building a machine that will destroy the city are anywhere in sight.  
  
  


“What are the blueprints supposed to look like, anyway?” Derek asks, flipping through the filing cabinets in Boland’s office.

“How the fuck am I supposed to know?” Will grits out, still looking beneath the desk.

“Chill, man, I was just asking,” Derek mutters, and Will makes a frustrated sound but doesn’t say anything else. “I’m just thinking, what if they’re not physical blueprints at all? What if they’re on his computer or something?”

Will pulls his head out from beneath the desk and gives Derek a look identical to the one he’d given him earlier. “That’s a stupid idea.”

“It is not,” Derek says immediately, and he means for it to sound defensive, but it comes out sounding petulant and childish instead.

Will just rolls his eyes and begins to rummage through the trashcan next to the desk. “Well, if you want to waste our time, be my guest.”

Derek doesn’t respond to that, because he doesn’t want to start a fight when they have a job to do. Instead, he sits at Boland’s desk and turns the computer on. It’s not password protected, surprisingly, and sure enough, sitting right there in a shortcut on Boland’s desktop, is “time machine.pdf.”

Derek smirks. He can’t wait to rub this in Shitty’s face later.

He does a quick scan of the rest of Boland’s documents, but when he doesn’t find anything of value, he pulls out the flash drive he had the good wisdom to remember to bring, and copies and pastes the pdf from Boland’s computer onto the drive, making sure to delete the original copy off the computer before he powers it off.

“Found it,” Derek says, waving the flash drive triumphantly and jumping out of the computer chair. “Let’s get out of here, yeah?”

Will, still crouched on the ground, looks up at him in disbelief. “Seriously?”

“What, you don’t trust me?”

Will sets his mouth into a grim line. “I don’t know. Should I?”

Derek blinks, stunned, and Will looks away from whatever hurt expression must be on his face. 

“What the fuck is _that_ supposed to mean?” He demands.

Will slowly gets to his feet, still not quite meeting Derek’s gaze. “I don’t know. Why don’t you ask Jack?”

And everything clicks into place. 

“He told you?” Derek asks quietly.

“Yeah,” Will says, and now, he finally looks up. “I had to hear from my _boss_ that you didn’t want to work with me anymore, of all people.”

He’s never heard Will sound so bitter and angry, and Derek swallows down the feeling of bile rising in his throat. Which is ridiculous, because this is what he wanted, wasn’t it? For someone else to deliver the news. He just never thought Jack would do it so quickly, or without giving him a head’s up first.

“I was going to tell you.”

“You’ve had two days, Derek.”

“Yeah, well,” he says weakly. “You know I hate confrontation.”

“ _Bullshit,_ ” Will spits out, sounding furious, and even when they hated each other, he never looked at him like this. 

_Maybe it’s better this way,_ Derek thinks. _Maybe if he hates me, he’ll stay out of my way, forget about me. Stop getting himself into stupid situations just trying to save my ass._

The thought is meant to be comforting, but it feels like there’s a ton of lead at the bottom of his stomach.

“I thought — ” Will begins angrily, and his voice breaks off. Then he begins, quieter, “Derek, I thought we were friends. Why wouldn’t you talk to me about this? What did I do wrong?” 

“You didn’t,” Derek says quickly, and then he sighs, resigned. “I just — I can’t do this anymore, alright?”

For a brief moment, Will looks like he’s been struck. Then he steps back, his face hardened into a scowl once more. “Are you fucking serious?”

“It’s just that — ” Derek stammers. “I’m always getting myself into trouble and all these crazy situations, and you keep following me around and get into them too, and it’s stupid, Will! I couldn’t — ”

“ _Stupid?_ ” Will repeats. “ _Following_ you around? I’m doing my _job_ , Nurse. If you thought I was so pathetic then why didn’t you break things off months ago?”

“What?” Derek says, shocked. “I never said you were — ”

“Look, if this is about — ” Will begins, still angry, but then his voice cracks. On instinct, Derek steps forward, but Will takes an automatic step back. 

“If this is about...the way I feel,” Will says haltingly, in a quiet sort of voice. “Then I wish you’d just come out and say it, instead of beating around the bush.” 

“The way you feel?” Derek repeats stupidly.

Will looks away. “Don’t play dumb.”

And maybe that is what he’s doing, because a small part of him has always known that Will’s bashful smiles and lingering looks and the way he almost unconsciously leans into every arm Derek throws around his shoulder were gestures of more than just friendship. Just like a small part of him has always known that he’s tried to get over his feelings for Will not because he didn’t think Will would ever feel the same way, but because he was afraid of what might happen if he did. Will would do anything for the people he loves, and everyone knows that, but Derek can’t be one of those people. Not when he’s always falling off of buildings or getting kidnapped by drug lords or nearly getting shot every other mission.

“Will,” Derek says, taking one last desperate step forward, because he _has_ to know his reasoning, he has to understand why Derek is doing this. This time, Will doesn’t move away. “Please just let me explain — ”

But before he can come up with anything to say, Derek hears the unmistakable sound of keys jangling, and a door unlocking.

He then realizes several things at once. The first is that despite Shitty and Lardo’s promise to give them updates on how they’re doing on time every ten minutes, they haven’t heard a word through their radios since entering the house. The second is that the sound came from the front door, which is located right outside the study. And the third is that it doesn’t matter how ridiculously huge Boland’s house is, because there’s no way the two of them will escape without being caught.

He only has time to register the panicked look on Will’s face before he hears the sound of a door closing and a few footsteps, then he whirls around to find a man standing at the entrance of the study room, looking shocked to find two strangers in spandex in his home.

And though Boland is a man who doesn’t password protect his computer or give very important documents better names, he still has enough sense to pull a gun from his pocket and point it straight at Will. Derek acts purely on instinct when he shoves Will out of the way, pulls a stun arrow out of his sheath, fires straight at Boland, and watches him collapse to the ground.

Derek’s always been pretty quick with a bow and arrow. But he isn’t always quick enough.

The thing about getting shot is that it hurts like shit. He’s always known this objectively, but despite his line of work, he’s actually never gotten shot before. In fact, the pain is so shocking and sudden and terrible that he feels himself fall to the ground, hard, thudding his head against the wall.

Things are a little muffled and confusing after that. He hears two familiar voices that he vaguely recognizes as Shitty and Lardo, and he also hears Will, shouting for a towel to stop the blood. For a while after that he’s in so much pain that he doesn’t hear anything at all. He never knew pain could be so loud before.

The next thing he registers is Will, crouching down in front of him and stroking a hand through his hair. “Hey, Derek. Shitty and Lardo called for help, okay? Justin’s on his way and he’s gonna be here any second.”

“They’re okay?” Derek manages to gasp out.

“Yeah, yeah, they’re fine. They tried to warn us, but the radios weren’t operating, but they’re safe, and everything’s okay. So don’t worry, alright?”

“Good,” Derek says, and he tries to nod only that hurts, too.

“Shh, hey,” Will says, and shifts closer to him. “Don’t move or anything, alright?”

Derek becomes dimly aware of something pressing against his side, and looks down to see the towel Will had asked for pressed against the wound in his side. He feels his mouth pull down in a frown. “How bad is it?”

“You’re gonna be fine,” Will says, which isn’t really an answer.

Derek hums. “I’m gonna be chill?”

Will laughs, but the sound is strangled. “That too.”

But Derek doesn’t feel fine. Or chill. He feels dizzy, and his head feels heavy, and some part of his body, though he’s not sure which, is throbbing painfully. (Seriously, he cannot emphasize enough how terrible it feels to get shot.) He thinks he might feel better if he closes his eyes for a few minutes, only when he tries, Will panics.

“Derek? Hey, come on, don’t.” Derek opens his eyes groggily. “You have to keep your eyes open, okay?”

“Okay,” he says again. It occurs to him, suddenly, that Will is crying. He’s never seen him cry before. He’s a very ugly crier. “Wh-what’s wrong?” He asks, suddenly concerned.

Will scoffs, or tries to, at least. It sounds more like a sniffle. “Are you kidding me? You’re _bleeding,_ and — ” He breaks off to sniffle again. “God, I can’t believe you did something so _stupid._ Why would you do that?”

Derek manages a smile. “Guess it was my turn to save your ass.”

“That’s stupid,” he says again, angrily wiping tears from his face.. “ _You’re_ stupid. If you ever do anything that stupid again, I’m going — I’m gonna fucking kill you, okay?”

Only Derek is starting to feel even dizzier, and his eyelids are growing heavier. “Lucky for you, I’m probably not going to get the chance.”

“Shut up, don’t say that,” Will says, panicked again. “Justin will be here any second, okay? You’re gonna be fine.”

But Derek isn’t going to be fine. He knows that, and so does Will, and that’s...well, it’s really scary, honestly. He’s never been scared of dying before — if he had been, he would’ve picked a different profession — but he feels scared now. He doesn’t want to die: he’s young, and he’s only crossed off half of the things on his Bucket List. And he never got the chance to say goodbye to his friends, to his family, to all the people that matter the most to him.

Still, Will’s safe, and that’s what he wanted. Maybe that’s enough.

“Will?” 

“Yeah?”

“You’ll tell my moms and Whiskey everything, right? They deserve to know what happened.” 

“No,” Will says, shaking his head so fiercely that Derek’s entire body aches — though of course. that could be a side effect of dying. “No, you can tell them, okay? You’re gonna be fine and you’re gonna tell them yourself.”

Derek tries to manage a smile again, but it’s more difficult this time. “Will. It’s okay.”

Will makes a strangled sound. “You can’t do this. You — you can’t just _leave_ me, Derek, please.”

“’M sorry,” Derek murmurs, and he is, really. 

Will’s face twists, like he’s trying not to cry harder, and he presses his forehead against Derek’s.

“Derek, c’mon, please,” he says again. “Don’t do this.”

Derek tries to keep his eyes open. He thinks he’s earned the right to get a last look at the boy he took a bullet for, even if that boy has snot dripping down his nose. 

“I love you, okay?” Will sobs. “I love you, so — please, please don’t do this. Please don’t go.”

Derek wants to say it back, because this is Will, who’s angry, stubborn, and uptight but also beautiful and brave and so kind, and of course Derek loves him, more than anything. But when he opens his mouth, no words come out.

So instead, Derek settles on a smile, one he hopes is filled with all the reassuring words and confessions he can’t say, and closes his eyes.

The last thing Derek hears is Will crying, “Justin!” He feels another hand on his shoulder, and then everything turns black. 

  
  


When Derek wakes up, the first thing he sees is teal. It takes him a second to recognize that it’s a San Jose Sharks hoodie, and it takes him a second longer to realize that Christopher Chow is the one who’s wearing it. 

After taking in the stark white walls and a vaguely familiar beeping sound, Derek determines he’s in the med-bay in the Agency’s hospital. It’s the bottom floor of Headquarters, used only when a hero gets injured on duty. Despite his clumsy nature, Derek’s only been here once, and that was to visit Adam when he’d gotten knocked unconscious after a mission. He’s never actually had to stay here before, but he guesses there’s a first time for everything.

The hospital room is pretty small, with a vase of flowers in the corner of the room and a couple of folding chairs to his right. Chris is asleep on one of them, his body slumped across Derek’s legs. 

He looks like he’s out cold, but when Derek shifts his stiff and achy legs, Chris blinks awake, yawning, and just as it looks like he’s about to drift off again, he looks up and bolts upright. “Derek! You’re awake!”

“Yeah — ” But before Derek can say anymore, Chris is practically climbing into the bed, wrapping Derek in a hug that’s far too tight for someone who’s recently been shot.

“Chris,” he wheezes. “Hurts.”

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” Chris says, immediately letting go and scrambling back into his chair. “Jesus, Derek. How are you feeling? Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I think so.” Derek scans Chris’ face. His clothes are rumpled, his hair’s a mess, and honestly, he doesn’t smell very great. “How long have I been out?”

“Two days.”

“Shit,” Derek curses. “Whiskey’s probably freaking out.”

“Uh, yeah, Whiskey’s not the only one freaking out,” Chris says. “I mean, what were you thinking? You scared me half to _death._ I thought — we all thought you were — ”

To Derek’s horror, Chris’ lower lip begins to wobble, and he can see the tears gathering in his eyes. “Hey, no, Chris, it’s okay. I’m okay.”

Chris sniffles loudly. “I know, I know. Just — you lost a lot of blood, Derek. The bullet went through your stomach, and Justin told us it never hit anything vital, but still. We weren’t sure you were gonna make it.”

“C’mon, Chris,” Derek says, lightly shoving Chris’ shoulder and sending him a reassuring smile. “I’m way too stubborn to die.” 

Chris lets out a half snort, half sniffle at that, and Derek grins, feeling successful. “Did the mission go okay? Everyone’s safe?”

“Sure, thanks to you,” Chris says and Derek feels suddenly very bashful. “We extracted the blueprints from your flash drive — good thinking, by the way — and since your arrow knocked Boland unconscious, everyone got out just fine. Lardo wiped his memory of the last few minutes, just to be safe, of course. But everyone’s fine.”

“Good. That’s good,” Derek says with a nod, and then becomes interested in picking at a loose string in his hospital gown. “And, um, Will...?”

Chris rubs his eyes with the sleeve of his hoodie, which, frankly, looks like it could use a decent wash. “Oh, he’s getting us food. Figures the first time he leaves is when you decide to finally wake up.”

Derek swallows. “He hasn’t left this whole time?”

Chris frowns. “Of course not. Neither of us have. We were so worried, Derek.” He hesitates, then continues, “And Will — ”

“So the McDonald’s ice cream machine was broken, as usual, so I got us — ” Will comes to an abrupt halt at the doorway of the hospital room, eyes wide as he takes Derek in. He nearly drops the McDonald’s bag fisted in his hand.

Derek’s pretty sure his eyes are wide, too, because Will looks awful. His eyes are bloodshot, and there are bags upon bags under them. It looks like it’s been weeks since he slept or even showered, not two days.

“Derek,” Will breathes, stunned. “You’re awake.”

“Uh,” Derek says, lamely. “Yep.”

Chris looks at Derek, then at Will, and then, without a word, slowly slides out of his seat and out of the room, gently grabbing the McDonald’s bag from Will’s hands as he passes. He closes the door on his way out.

Derek clears his throat, awkward. “So, uh. Hi.”

Will stares. “ _Hi?_ That’s really what you’re going to lead with?”

“Well, I don’t know!” Derek says, defensive. “What was I _supposed_ to lead with?”

“Not _hi,_ for fuck’s sake! You nearly die and all you have to say is ‘hi?’”

“I’ve never nearly died before, alright? It’s not like I have experience with this sort of thing!”

“Jesus Christ,” Will mutters, scrubbing his hands over his face.

“So, uh,” Derek says, then coughs. “I guess we should talk?”

“You _guess,_ ” Will scoffs, lowering his hands, and Derek grimaces sheepishly. “I mean, God, what you were thinking? You decide you don’t want to be partners anymore without even talking to me first, and then you take a _bullet_ for me, like — ”

He cuts himself off. He’s shaking, Derek realizes, and Will must realize it too, because he winces before taking a deep breath and asking, “What the fuck am I supposed to do with that, Derek?”

“I was trying to protect you, alright?”

“Yeah, I gathered that, from the whole ‘taking a bullet for me’ thing.”

Derek rolls his eyes. “That’s not what I meant! I meant that every time I was in danger, or nearly died, you were there to help. It felt like you were so close to getting hurt, and if something happened to you because of _me_ — ” 

“So what if it does?” Will demands. “You can’t honestly expect me not to protect you. I mean, we’re partners. You’d do the same for me.”

“But it’s _different,_ ” Derek insists.

Will throws his hands up. “How?”

“Because I’m in danger more often!”

“That’s _ridiculous,_ ” Will practically shouts. “You’re _always_ the one watching my back and standing guard. Last week I would’ve been dead if you hadn’t taken that guy out when I wasn’t looking. And you literally _just_ took a bullet for me, Derek! How can you think that you’re in danger more often?”

“But you’ve never nearly tripped and fallen off a building,” Derek points out. “ _You’ve_ never been kidnapped and held hostage to try to trap me when I rescue you.”

“Well, yeah, _yet._ ”

“Will, come _on._ You know it’s not the same. You know I’m more of a risk.”

“Okay, well, maybe I think you’re worth the risk!” Will bursts out. “Maybe I’m always careful and I have everything under control and I know how to make sure that nothing goes wrong. And even if it did, if I got hurt or something happened...I’d still do it, alright?”

“Will — ”

“No,” Will interrupts. His voice catches again, and his shoulders start to shake, and Derek realizes he’s crying. “If it meant you were okay, and you were safe — I’d do it, alright? I’d do anything.” He wipes at his eyes, almost in surprise, like he hadn’t realized he was crying. “I — fuck, I’m sorry — ”

“Will,” Derek says gently. “Hey. It’s okay. C’mere.”

He approaches the med-bay slowly, and only after Derek pats the bed does Will climb gently onto his lap, as if he’s worried he’ll break him. Derek reaches up, brushing Will’s tears away, but that just makes him cry harder, so he settles on soothingly rubbing his hand up and down his back.

Will dries his tears with the sleeve of his ratty t-shirt. “I was so scared,” he says in a shaky voice. 

“I know. Me, too,” Derek admits. “I’m sorry.”

“I thought — ” Will hiccups. “I thought I was going to lose you.”

Derek feels his own eyes fill with tears, and blinks them away. “It’s okay. I’m right here.”

Will sniffles, leaning back to sigh deeply. His eyes are even redder now, and there’s a lot of snot on his face, and Derek can’t help but snort, really. Will glares at him half-heartedly and grabs some tissues from the table next to the med-bay, honking noisily into them. Derek does his best not to snort at that, too.

After he’s tossed the tissues into the nearby wastebasket — because even upset, Will is a neat freak — he says, “Justin said you were kind of in and out of it.” 

Derek has no memory of this, but he trusts Justin’s assessment of his health, so he nods.

Will looks down. “Do you, uh...do you remember much after you got shot?”

Oh. Derek wondered when they were going to talk about this. He figured it’d be in a couple of days, not half an hour after he woke from consciousness. 

“I do,” Derek says carefully.

Will risks a peek up at him, and then quickly looks back down at his lap. He twists his hands together nervously. “Do you remember...all of it?”

“I think so.”

“Oh,” Will says. He still doesn’t look up. Derek waits. “I’m sorry.”

That hadn’t been what he was expecting. “For what?”

“That I’m dumping all of this now. And then, I guess.” He chuckles awkwardly, but he’s frowning. “I wish I’d said it earlier. Or that I’d waited, maybe. I don’t know. And we’re in a hospital, so, obviously, we don’t have to talk about it now. I mean, we can wait, or if you don’t want to talk about it at all, then — ”

“Will,” Derek interrupts.

Will stops rambling. “Yeah?”

Derek shakes his head. “Will,” he says again, softer this time. “How could you think I don’t love you?”

Will’s mouth parts. “What?”

Derek feels himself smile. “You are so uptight and such an asshole and so infuriating and yet you work so hard to learn and to grow and to change every single day. I’ve never met a person who works as hard or cares as much as you do. It’s amazing, Will. I could dedicate pages and pages of poetry to your smile, your laugh, your freckles, the way you say my name...and by the way I took a fucking _bullet_ for you, how can you be questioning any of this right now?”

Will blushes a delicate pink, and his eyes turn soft, the way they do when he talks to his mom on the phone, or gives Chris a hug, or looks over at Derek when he thinks he’s not paying attention. “Derek — ”

“You are the most beautiful person I’ve ever known,” Derek interrupts. “And there is not a single reality or universe where I’m not stupidly in love with you.”

And then he kisses him.

Will’s mouth tastes salty from tears, and Derek is dimly aware that neither of them have brushed their teeth in quite a long time, but he can’t quite bring himself to care. Will lets out a muffled sound of surprise, but then quickly he’s leaning into the kiss, taking Derek’s face gently in his hands, like he’s holding something precious. Derek’s heart beats so loud he’s sure Will can hear it. 

“I love you, too,” Will says when they part, leaning his forehead against Derek’s.

Derek huffs out a laugh. “Yeah, I think you mentioned that.”

“Shut up,” he says, but there’s no bite to it, especially when the words are followed by a kiss to his mouth, against his jaw, on the tip of his nose, and then his mouth again.

“I love you so much,” Will mumbles, still kissing him.

“Okay, there’s only so much I can take,” Chris says, and Will scrambles backwards enough for Derek to see him standing in the doorway of the hospital room. “I mean, I’m really happy for both of you. Like, ecstatically happy, truly, but come on.”

“What the hell, Chris,” Will whines as he covers his burning face with his hands.

“Dude, how long have you been standing there?” Derek asks.

“Not long enough for it to be weird,” Chris says casually, flopping back into his chair. “But if you guys act that mushy at work, I’m switching desks with Adam.”

But Chris is beaming when he says it, and his eyes are shining with unshed tears, and he looks so happy and full of relief that Derek knows he doesn’t mean a word of it.

“Also, there’s fries if you lovebirds want some,” he adds.

“Duh,” Derek says, immediately grabbing the proffered McDonald’s bag and stuffing his face. He hasn’t eaten in two days, after all.

Will shakes his head fondly, and though he still looks a little flushed, he climbs out of Derek’s lap and sits on the previously vacant fold-out chair next to the med-bay. 

The three of them spend the rest of the day passing around a large carton of McDonald’s fries, talking, laughing, and enjoying the feeling of being alive, and with each other. And even though Derek holds Will’s hand the entire time, Chris graciously doesn’t comment on it.

It’s not a happily ever after, necessarily. Nearly dying can take a toll on a person, or so he’s been told, and he and Will still have some things to figure out. He highly doubts they’ve had their last argument over the risks they’re willing to take to keep each other safe. 

Still, Derek’s alive, and he’s with his friends, and Will loves him. And right now, in this moment, that feels like enough.

Besides, they’re superheroes. He’s pretty sure they’ll be alright.

**Author's Note:**

> is nursey realizing he has feelings for dex while they're watching guardians of the galaxy volume two (2017) the most self indulgent thing i have ever written?? yes and i have zero regrets
> 
> please follow me on [tumblr](rocketnebulas.tumblr.com) and [twitter](twitter.com/scoopstroops) to see me never shut up about nurseydex


End file.
